Album Review: Lorde – Virgin
3 min read
In a bold artistic rebirth, Lorde returns with her fourth studio album, Virgin, via Universal/Republic Records. Departing from the acoustics of Solar Power, Lorde aims to make this introspective record more synth-driven, with raw lyrics and influenced by her time in New York, with lashings of personal turmoil. The aim of Virgin is to probe themes including identity, embodiment, and transformation lyrically, to an instrumentation of minimal beats and emotionally charged hooks. Let’s see if Lorde achieves the confessional pop experience to reveal a powerful new chapter in her book….
Hammer certainly delivers the brief – minimal synth beats and powerful hooks, and this follows to What Was That, Lorde slows the tempo down with the same synth beats and tones to begin, lyricising about drug taking experiences which build to a powerful short choruses. Shapeshifter takes on a late nineties club land slip beat, with slower synth harmonies and lyrics laid over the top, while Man of the Year see a more analogue, simple bass guitar in this slow track which builds through the track in what is my clear track of the album. The tempo turns up a notch in Favourite Daughter (which is another great track) in a track which has great lyrics in expressing second daughter feelings “Panic attack just to be your favourite daughter”.
Current Affairs starts the second half of the album off strong, with an addictive metronomic beat and a fantastic sample of dancehalls Dexta Daps’ Morning Love is a brilliantly constructed track. Short track Clearblue is a predominantly layered vocal track, while GRWM is similarly a short, vocal dominated track, with a fantastic synth arrangement that grows over the track, encapsulating being a young adult perfectly. Broken Glass gives a breakbeat bass and plucky synths over the top, whilst the lyrics cover the sensitive topic of body insecurity and extreme measures to make the ideal you, whilst penultimate track If She Could See Me Now gives the best stylistic tones used on the album. Finally, we have David – another cracker… fantastic use of synths and well-constructed track in a song that lyrically talks about how she would have, in elated immature heat of recognition, given her everything to an abuser – what a powerful closer.
If you were to use a word to describe Virgin it would be “transparency” – the lyrics are a no holds barred view into some very sensitive subjects, layered into some great deep basslines and fantastic synth arrangements. There are a few absolute heaters on the album (notably Man of the Year, Favourite Daughter and David) but the album is very strong start to end. Hand on heart it’s not my usual vibe, but despite this I can guarantee that at least one of those three aforementioned tracks will be going in the 2025 favourites, and I’m sure there will be plenty out there who will be aghast that I’ve not added this to my short list of whole albums kept in my Spotify downloads – it was a no skip, start-to-end listen that I would advise anyone to take their headphones to a quiet space and give it the attention it deserves.
